GOP video mocks White House for canceling tours

Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is poking a little fun at President Obama’s decision to put a stop to White House tours in the face of the sequester instead of making more targeted spending cuts.

His office released a new video highlighting the White House’s shifting narrative about who ordered the tours to be closed — the president or the Secret Service.

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White House spokesman Jay Carney has said the White House made the decision to put a halt to the tours in response to recommendations from the Secret Service while Mr. Obama told ABC News in an interview that he didn’t make the decision — that it was the Secret Service’s idea to avoid furloughing any of their officers.

Republicans have said the canceled tours — which were stopped just as the spring tourism season begins in earnest in Washington — are proof that the Obama administration is trying to make budget cuts that maximize the most public exposure instead of making more targeted cuts.

Mr. Issa says there are $67 billion in unimplemented reforms that the president’s own nonpartisan inspectors general have recommended. The oversight panel released a report March 5 highlighting those cuts.

The video starts out by pointing out how quiet it’s been at the White House lately since they’ve canceled the tours with “no one to get in the way” of Mr. Obama playing basketball or running down the hallways with his dog Bo. Then it plays the clip of ABC News interview with Mr. Obama in which he denies making the decision to cancel the tours juxtaposed against Mr. Carney’s explanation that the White House made the decision based on Secret Service recommendations.

It ends with the words “no leadership, no responsibility, no White House tours.”

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About the Author

Susan Crabtree is an award-winning investigative reporter with more than 15 years of reporting experience in Washington, D.C. Her reporting about bribery, corruption and conflict-of-interest issues on Capitol Hill has led to several FBI and ethics investigations, as well as consequences for members within their caucuses and at the ballot box. Susan can be reached at scrabtree@washingtontimes.com.